StrangeSox

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 1, 2009 -> 03:56 PM) Do you know his AB per RBI ratio? I imagine it's been pretty special over the last month. Um, 176AB/35RBI

That's Gordon's 15 2B in 176 AB's. It's also his 35 RBI.

Keep that line moving right around. The White Sox offense was constipated and loosened itself up last night.

Bacon 4 MVP

Pods!

I thought that was going to be called for sure.

woohoo.

Awesome. Another error.

QUOTE (That funky motion @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 08:28 PM) Thought the same thing till my back started going out in my 30's I would have to use the nighstand to get out of bed in the morn. Then I met a quack. He showed me why my back was hurting and cracked my back. He also showed me how to do a few simple things in the morning and now I see him 5 times a year max and my back feel great. Ok, I should have qualified my statement. I do think chiros can help with back pain. I don't think that "spinal alignment" can affect asthma, cancer, diabetes, etc. like some chiros claim. There seems to be a chasm between these two groups of chiros.

Chiropracters are quacks..

Yep, which is why some of the other methods that don't rely on estimates of parent/daughter products and atmospheric content are more reliable than carbon dating.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:29 PM) I keep getting told that God wrote the Bible. That really depends on who you ask since there's probably as many strands of Christianity as there are Christians.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:15 PM) If you cant carbon date rock, then how did a scientist, not knowing it was dinosaur rock, carbon date it? You can attempt to carbon-date anything but you'll get meaningless results if there's not carbon in the thing you're dating. You can date rock using various other radiometric dating techniques that don't involve carbon. edit: also, 12-15k years still doubles your timescale.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:14 PM) And every culture has a different way of measuring "years" Every culture measures years based on solar and stellar patterns and they all correlate. They might say its a different year number but the time scales are the same.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:12 PM) But if there is a greater, all powerful fouce, who created the earth, he can put those actions into place with the snap of a finger. But why create something that looks like X happened when really it did not? Why make the earth appear old instead of just letting the clock run a few billion years?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:10 PM) This is the part I'm talking about. We do actually know humans have only been around for a few thousand years but how do we know how long God's "days" are? For all I know, God could blink his eyes and my whole life comes and goes. I don't know. Neither does anyone else. Biblical literalism is a fundamental tenant of some Christians. There's also young-earth muslims, as well, but it doesn't appear to be a strong strain in other religions.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:08 PM) See, here is the problem with the argument that comes from the scientific world. They say "science shows this to be true, therefor it is true". But that's assuming development over millions of years. Creationist say "it was made that way". That's not exactly how it worked. A few centuries ago, everyone was a creationist and assumed a young earth. But, as scientists figured out more and more, the timescales were pushed back further and further. Not because of some sort of philosophical belief but because of what the evidence indicated. They didn't start with an assumption of billions of years but worked backwards to it. That leaves the question of "why would God create a universe that appears to be 13.something billion years old and that life arose through common descent if it were not true?" You can't carbon date rock.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 12:05 PM) I don't actually know why, in order to be a creationist, you have to believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where does it actually say that in the Bible? You count timescales based on the genealogies (x begat y begat z etc.) and take the 6 days of creation in Genesis literally. There's obviously some estimating going on there so you end up with ranges between 5-12k years from what I've seen. edit: that's for young-earth creationism. There's a lot of old-earth creationists and there's theistic evolution as well.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) Exactly my point. Not to be an ass, but that plays right into my scientific illiteracy ranting. Modern geology and plate tectonics (not to mention a whole host of other physical and biological phenomenon) just don't work if you shrink the timescale to a few thousand years.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) Not at all. Plate tectonics is the process by which earth's plates move around. Just because they are moving away from each other, doesnt prove they were once connected. Balta can expand on this much more I'm sure, but that's not why scientists think they were once the same land mass. You find the same rock formations and the same types of geology on the coasts of both continents where they would have connected.

Think time scales. If plate tectonics are real but the earth is only a few thousand years old, they wouldn't have been together.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 11:46 AM) Well, the Dems had 16% in there who said definite no, add 16% for GOP'ers and that is 32% of the population who I think, just out of ignorance, don't know. Which is sad, and goes to education as you said. But the differential between parties, to me, logically links only to those religious beliefs (because I really don't think that one party is more intelligent or better educated than the other). I think it might have something to do with this: and this:

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 11:41 AM) That's pretty much a perfect illustration of why the GOP is such a disaster right now - the influence (though, fortunately, waning) of the wing-nut religious right. That's not a common theme in religious creationism, though. They come up with wacky theories like the plates all moving around at 100 MPH after "The Flood" but its generally not a common denial. I think its just more evidence of the lack of science education and the growing cynicism of education, intelligence and experts.

I'd imagine that makes you want to cry/ punch someone. I like the racial breakdowns, too. edit: I see know that its a facebook poll. I'll just wishfully assume a more rigorous survey would come up with better results. edit edit: nevermind, its a facebook page with a daily kos poll. It's still alarming to see only 51% of dems and 44% of independents responding "yes"

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 10:50 AM) Ah OK, that is a different update. I was referring to the broad-based changes in EPA testing from 2006. I didn't realize these were new ones beyond that. Of course, it looks like this change put some cars in, and some out, so its a net zero effect. But this is definitely an example of government agencies not communicating well with one another. The change should have been put in place at the beginning of the program. Net zero for the total number of models, but not necessarily for the total number of vehicles.